STAGES ST. LOUIS-WHERE MUSICAL THEATRE COMES ALIVE!

EDUCATION: STAGES @ School,

Urban Arts Initiative, & Outreach Programming

STAGES @ School is a program offered to schools throughout the St. Louis region which brings STAGES artists into the classroom or after-school program. Workshops and multi-week residencies are available on a variety of topics ranging from technical theatre to careers in the arts, as well as instruction in acting, dance or musical theatre. In addition to providing training in a selected topic, STAGES @ School programs instill in students a love for the arts and a respect for the craft of the theatre professional.

Through the STAGES Urban Arts Initiative, STAGES brings its educational outreach programs to urban schools and community groups. These STAGES workshops and residencies introduce underserved students to the magic of musical theatre and the empowering potential of an arts experience.

STAGES currently has developed relationships with the following schools:

Archdiocese of St. Louis Schools
Walker Scottish Rite Clinic for Childhood Language Disorders
Grace Hill-Head Start
City Academy
Marian Middle School
Urban Future/Fanning Middle
Shaw VPA Elementary
The Miriam School
Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club
Parkway Central High School
The Special School District

STAGES is also a participating member of Interchange, ww.interchangestlouis.org.

For more information about STAGES @ School or STAGES Urban Arts Initiative, contact the STAGES Education Department at 636.530.5959.

STAGES Urban Arts Initiative

The 2008/2009 Urban Arts Initiative programs are in place and expected to serve 600 students at the following organizations and schools:

Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club: STAGES entered its fourth year of programming with Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club in 2008, continuing our third year of year-round programming. In the fall of 2007, STAGES and the Club served 20 students by offering two weekly musical theatre classes for ages 8-11 and 12-18 and followed up this spring with our second full production of the very popular High School Musical. The cast of 25 young people rehearsed three times a week under professional directors, working to prepare a fully-staged version of the show which was performed twice for the community and once for students at Confluence Academy. In total, STAGES teaching artists spent over 90 contact hours enriching the lives of young people at Herbert Hoover in the past year, making it among our most significant partnerships.

Plans for the fall of 2008 will include 20 hours of musical theatre classes at Herbert Hoover. Two classes – one for ages 8-11 and one for ages 12-18 with each serving up to 15 students – and in spring of 2009 STAGES will provide 40 hours of classes and rehearsals for a fully staged production at Hebert Hoover reaching 30 performers ages 8-18.

Grace Hill Head Start: STAGES maintains an ongoing relationship with Grace Hill Head Start sites, providing them each year with multiple residencies. In the fall of 2007, STAGES Education Assistant, Catalina Bajuyo, taught a 22 hour residency serving approximately 50 pre-schoolers at the Grace Hill Howard Branch site. This group of students is from the City of St. Louis and represents a very racially diverse population where 89% of the families fall under the Federal Poverty Guideline. Using creative drama and movement curriculum, the residency helps the students learn through the arts and focuses on positional vocabulary and concepts (i.e., over, under, through, around), letter/number recognition, and other aspects of the Head Start Dial Curriculum and Evaluation program, and will continue this fall.

Shaw Visual & Performing Arts Elementary School: This is the fourth year for STAGES’ partnership with Shaw Visual & Performing Arts Elementary School in the St. Louis Public School District. Each of the past three school years, STAGES has committed over 50 contact hours of time each spring producing a full musical theatre production with the school’s 5th grade class. This year, due to challenging staffing changes which resulted in Shaw being left with no drama teacher and a long-term substitute attempting to teach drama, STAGES repositioned its efforts and provided instruction to the 5th grade drama classes throughout the spring session. STAGES Director of Education & Outreach, Rob Grumich, continues providing activities and resources to aid the long-term substitute in helping her plan activities for her drama classes.

City Academy: The community of City Academy looks forward each year to a musical production from their students produced in partnership with STAGES. For four years STAGES has been working with students from various grade levels who spend time after-school learning musical theatre techniques and rehearsing the piece. This year’s group of ten 4th and 5th graders presented a 20 minute musical of the show HONK! In addition to focusing on musical theatre skills as part of the older grades’ after-school enrichment programs, Pre K and 1st grade classrooms also had the opportunity to work with a STAGES artist in a short poetry performance residency in the spring. City Academy President & Co-Founder Don Danforth III has high praise for the Urban Arts Initiative program: “City Academy is so fortunate to have the opportunity to partner with STAGES ST. LOUIS. Without them, our students would not have access to quality arts programming.”

Marian Middle School: STAGES and Marian Middle School collaborated for a fifth year when, in the fall of 2007, STAGES teaching artist Laurie Melnik worked with the 8th grade class to write a play. The project resulted in a student generated piece focused on curriculum from Top 20 Teens and American history. The 25-hour residency for the 12 students included the writing and play development component led by Ms. Melnik, as well as acting workshops and rehearsals of their original piece which was ultimately performed as part of the school’s holiday celebration. Objectives of the residency, planned to continue this fall, include: developing character building skills associated with social development during the playwriting process, learning dramatic structure and assessing understanding of this through the creating of an original play written by the students, and increasing awareness of tolerance through team building skills and collaborating with other students.

The STAGES partnership with Marian is one of our longest. Director Maureen Herrmann says, “Working with young girls from low-income families in a multiracial community demands a unique combination of personal commitment and professional skills. The staff at STAGES ST. LOUIS is exemplary and we are privileged to have the program as one of the cornerstones in our Enrichment Program.”

St. Louis Archdiocese Schools: Upon the recommendation of Sr. Pat Giljum, Fine Arts Director for the Archdiocese, STAGES began working in two Archdiocesan schools this academic year. In the fall of 2007, 15 6th and 7th graders from St. Frances Cabrini participated in an after-school residency where, under the leadership of STAGES teaching artist Andra Harkins, they created an original musical. Using a classic folktale, the students reworked the piece to fit their interests and cast size as well as wrote original lyrics and melodies to songs to fit into the story. The latter half of the program then focused on performance skills and producing the piece for a showcase production for families and the rest of the school. At St. Margaret of Scotland, where the collaboration included the 8th grade class and their music and writing classes, STAGES company member Ben Nordstrom made twice weekly visits to work with the students on material from the show You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. In addition to their work choreographing and learning the vocal parts to songs, the 23 students spent time in writing class adapting Charles Schulz comic strips into scripted scenes for performance in their final showcase.

Confluence Academy: One of STAGES’ newer school partners, Confluence is comprised of three schools—Walnut Park, Old North, and South City. In the 2007/08 academic year STAGES worked at all three sites hosting residencies of various kinds. At Old North in the fall, the STAGES teaching artist worked with the 7th grade social studies class and built upon a unit on urban sprawl. Students focused on their neighborhood, conducting interviews with family members and neighbors from past generations, exploring who they are, where they came from, and how their community has evolved through the years. These experiences were then used to develop self-created spoken word as well as musical pieces that were molded into a performance. In the spring a residency at the Walnut Park site was held with the Kindergarten Drama class. Two STAGES teaching artists focused on drama and dance activities centering on African folktales of Anansi the Spider with the goals of helping the students develop gross motor, balance and positional skills, and vocabulary, as well as expand their imagination and bring literature to life. Finally, at the South City site, STAGES teamed with the classroom and music teachers for a musical theatre residency with a 3rd grade class in which students performed material from You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. STAGES will return to all three schools this fall.

Girls, Inc.: In STAGES’ newest outreach collaboration approximately 15 girls, ages 12-16, met this spring for two hours each week over 10 weeks to learn and engage in the techniques and games of Playback Theatre and Theatre for Social change. Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot using music, movement and theatre. Theatre for Social Change is a set of games for actors and non-actors meant to prompt reflection on power and the lack thereof. The workshop ended in a performance for families and other girls, and a new workshop will be offered this fall.